Monday, May 31, 2010

Abercrombie and Fitchpork

But then they showed their true colours and published an admiring but strikingly ignorant review of the albums. When I first read it I thought oh I've been away from 'trendy' sites like this for too long and this is some kind of ironical new way of writing that appears limitlessly simplistic and superficial. Nope. "No intelligent life here..."

On the upside, I then found a critique of the review in question by a writer whose blog is dedicated to reviews of Pitchfork reviews (seriously), and who has a low toleranace level for braindead writing. He doesn't appear to know SP's music or even to have heard them so imagine how much stronger his criticisms would be were he a fan. Over to him:

-------"2. that review is better than the Shabazz Palaces review, which could not give you any less of a sense of how these records sound or what they’re about. for reasons i’m about to get into this review garners my rare and uncoveted Worst New Review!!! read it now if you haven’t yet.

the syntax is so stilted it’s uncomfortable, reads like an 11th-grader wrote it for a high school newspaper. like the only mention of lyrics is this: “Lazaro occasionally spits conscious verses about struggling and corruption, but he’s also not afraid to go all hardhead and talk tough. His lyrical subjects can be quotidian, frequently focusing on food and hanging out.” i’m not gonna address the meaningless-without-context, generic rap-oriented word choice in “not afraid to go all hardhead and talk tough”, but two records packed with raps and that’s all the preview we get? no quotes? are there any rhymes worthy of mention on this?

this sentence is retarded and is worst sentence in the whole review: “It’s clear that he wants his art to be taken seriously, and based on his output so far it certainly will.” who doesn’t want their art to be taken seriously? “Weird” Al Yankovic, David Hasslehoff? what the fuck kind of sentence is this? this is the 11th graderese i was talking about

and why is fitzmaurice insisting on refusing to let Palaceer Shabazz present himself the way he wants to? and NOT calling him by the name he’s asking to be called by? “Hopefully, Palaceer Lazaro— oh, fuck it, call him Ishmael” — nobody but Rick Ross still calls Diddy “Puff Daddy” and we certainly don’t call MF Doom “Zev Love X” so why be an asshole to this guy?

and then in the last paragraph, “reemergence doesn’t always guarantee eternal success, as Doom’s ever-unspooling narrative shows.” bro do you read pitchfork reviews or listen to Doom? you know his last full-length (from last year) got an 8.0? and his last EP (from this year) got a 7.2 (which is real high for any EP that’s not by animal collective)? how is DOOM unspooling? he’s been active and consistently putting out quality reords for years, i’d say he’s been among the MOST CONSISTENT presences in rap, given the volatility in the quality of work of even the highest-tier rappers. did any editors look at this review? man step your games up, it’s never too late in the day to shift this review down to the number 5 slot, or, like, replace it with whatever Tom Breihan has to say about the record